


Adrift Upon The Sea Of Time

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: Doctor Who, Inheritance Cycle - Christopher Paolini
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Interplanetary Travel, Tenth Doctor Era, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 13:20:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Visiting a beautiful city on an unknown planet, the Doctor muses on settling down. But will a beautiful wall painting depicting the story of an ancient dragon rider and his struggle for his world make him reconsider?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adrift Upon The Sea Of Time

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This small one-shot was inspired by the lines about the Doctor in Christopher Paolini's book, Brisingr. He explained that they were about the Doctor in his own Author's Note at the end of the book. It is about (in part) how Arya wrote them and (the bigger part) what impact they had. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own any trademarked names used in this Fanfic. Doctor Who copyright of the BBC. Eragon, Arya and the lines she wrote copyright to Christopher Paolini.

_Picking a dry blade of grass, Arya began sketching in the loose soil, tracing the curved shapes of glyphs from the elves' script, the Liduen Kvaedhí._

_As she signed a stop to the sentence, Eragon asked, "What does that mean?"_

" _I don't know."_

The Doctor rose from his cramped position on the wall where he had been lying for the past few hours. He looked around him at the beautiful, sloping landscape of a white stone city. It was completely deserted, and had yet to fall into ruin. The buildings were empty, but the structure was as sound as the day he imagined the people left this place. Why, he could not imagine.

A cloud of birds swooped overhead, chattering and whistling. The Doctor laughed. The sheer joy of this place overwhelmed him, the sun beating down upon the white rock, the plants and animals flourishing in the deserted houses and courtyards.

He wanted to stay here forever.

He sighed, unhappy for first time since he arrived in this beautiful place. He knew he could not stay here. How could he live in peace here, when so many needed him out there?

No one else could give the help he gave, and that was why he had to keep moving, keep looking for somewhere new.

"And hey, I would get bored here, after a while," he said to himself, and then shouted, "No one to talk to!"

His voice echoed back to him from the white walls, the first voice to be heard here in over a thousand years.

He turned from the beautiful sight outside to the equally beautiful one inside, a long hall with magnificent paintings and wall carvings adorning it. As he walked, he studied the pictures.

The words were of an ancient, lost language, and as the TARDIS translated them he read, "Here in Dorú Arbea, last hold of the dragon riders, Vreal beheld Galbatorix weak and almost defeated. His greatest mistake, withholding the final blow, cost Alagaesia all it has held dear."

_Sounds like me, not wanting to kill an enemy when you have already defeated him._

_But in this case, it may have been wiser to have struck him down while you still had the chance, Vreal my man,_ he thought as he saw the next row of paintings.

These depicted Vreal falling to Galbatorix, the rogue dragon rider, and that same man announcing himself king of Alagaesia. The years that followed were full of despair and suffering, with the king living almost a hundred years.  _Strange,_ thought the Doctor as he slid a finger over a carving of the ancient king,  _for one who seems to be a normal human to live so long._

Nearly a hundred years after Galbatorix came to the throne, a new, more hopeful set of pictures appeared. These were the story of a young farm boy who found a stone that turned out to be a dragon egg near his home. This dragon egg then hatched and the boy cared for the dragon until he was discovered by two nasty characters called 'Raz'ac'.

He then fled with the mysterious village storyteller, Brom, and together they tracked the Raz'ac. The story went on to tell of them losing the trail, then picking it up again in a place called Terim, then tracking them back down in another city named Dras-Leona, only to be jumped at their camp and Brom seriously wounded.

The two heroes of the story were saved by a mysterious stranger named Murtagh, who beat off the Raz'ac and helped Eragon, the farm boy, to heal. For Brom though, it was too late and he died, revealing to Eragon with his dying breath that he too had been a rider. Eragon had then buried him in a tomb of stone, which his dragon Saphira had magically turned into diamond. "Crystallisation using a mixture of heat ployethiene particles in the breath," the Doctor remarked, "Clever."

Eragon and Murtagh then saved an elf from a Shade in a army camp/city called Gil'ead, and travelled on a great distance to reach some rebels called the Varden so that the elf, whose name was Arya, could be healed of the poison she received while imprisoned in Gil'ead. It then went on to describe a great battle between the men and dwarfs of the Varden and a murderous race of creatures called Urgals, in which the Varden prevailed.

A group consisting of the Varden's leader, Ajihad, his two spellcasters, the Twins, Murtagh and some men and dwarfs went then sent out to kill all remaining and fleeing Urgals, who had broken ranks when Eragon had slain the shade Durza. Just before they arrived back, a group of Urgals attacked them, killing all men and dwarfs and Ajihad and making off with the bodies of the Twins and Murtagh.

After this, Eragon, Arya and one of Eragon's friends, a dwarf named Orik, who, if the Doctor had read those runes right, was the current dwarf king's adopted son, set out for the elf city of Ellsméra, hidden deep within a immense forest to the north.

It told of how the party had travelled and arrived, and of how Eragon and Saphira had received instruction in the ways of a dragon rider and his dragon from an old dragon rider called Oromis.

Then word was heard from the Varden, who had moved from the dwarf mountain to the rebel state of Surda, of a great battle soon to be fought. Eragon, Saphira and Orik rush there and fight bravely, but are met with grief as the dwarf king, Hrothgar, falls to the magic of a new dragon rider.

Eragon and this rider battle, and it turns out to be Murtagh, Eragon's old friend. It turned out he had not died under Farthen Dúr but had been brought before the king. When his dragon, Thorn, hatched for him, he swore oaths in the ancient language (which did not allow him to lie) that he and his dragon would forever serve Galbatorix. Knowing this, Murtagh releases Eragon, saying that the next time they cross swords it shall be to the death.

He also reveals that he and Eragon are brothers, and their father is the traitor dragon rider Morzan.

Eragon went on to have many adventures before ultimately defeating Galbatorix and restoring peace to the land. This was where the runes and pictures ended, leaving images of peaceful homes and farmlands.

Suddenly, something a little way back caught the Doctor's eye. He walked to it. It was a painting of the elf princess, Arya, and Eragon sitting by a fire in the middle of the wilderness. All that was written underneath was this.

_Adrift upon the sea of time, the lonely god wanders from shore to distant shore, upholding the laws of the stars above._

_The trickster, the riddler, the keeper of the balance, he of the many faces who finds life in death and fears no evil; he who walks through doors._

The Doctor stared at it for awhile, taking it in. Then he turned, walking away in the direction of the TARDIS.

He knew who those lines had been about. And he also knew what he had to do.

_Who finds life in death and fears no evil._

This he must do. He must uphold the laws of the stars above for ever more, the lonely god of the people. He must help. He must walk through doors.

He must be adrift upon the sea of time.


End file.
